One Breath Apart
by LJ the Cenobite of Steel-83
Summary: AU non-linear Snapshot story set during the third Hellraiser film. She thought he was dead. She was wrong. Kirsty has found him, five years following his sacrifice, in a New York nightclub, and encased in a stone pillar. But something is not right with him... Unbound!Pinsty.


_Author Intro:__ Wow, just written this one up on the spot! :o I've had this idea brewing for quite some time, and just this past hour or so, I felt oddly inspired to write it out. And here it is. :D It's just a simple snapshot for now, a flash fiction, not the full thing. I'll probably make this a non-linear drabble series, and the next chapter detailing just what led to this moment. If you don't know, well this is set during Hellraiser III, and it is semi-AU, semi-canon. And it's Unbound Pinsty. ;) Unbound Pinhead, of course, is the id form of Elliot/Pinhead. And for whatever reason, I can't seem to stop hankering for Kirsty and this version of Pinhead to interact. It fascinates me because Kirsty wasn't in 3, and thus never confronted Unbound. Why not write a kind of AU where Kirsty was led to him, finds him, and then wants to help him, unaware of his true nature? Of course, I'm aware that Unbound Pinhead is much more unhinged than the normal version of him, but I can't help but believe he'd still have a soft spot for her. Why not, right? Besides, it's AU. We can relax the rules. Anyway, hope you enjoy this little effort. Been a while since I've written anything and I'm quite rusty, so please be kind. - Laura_

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**One Breath Apart**

He had been in a deep and impenetrable slumber.

How long for? He did not know.

How could he have measured the passing of time whilst entrapped and sleeping within stone forged from Leviathan Himself?

All he knew was _now_; he had awakened within the human realm, driven - _tethered_ and completely incapable of movement, but utterly dedicated with a renewed enthusiasm for his craft. A whole world of flesh, nerve-endings, and unconscious desires needing to be indulged awaited him, and he was impatient to get started.

Ah, there was so much these banal, unenlightened beings could be shown...such sights, such _pleasures_. He was aching to teach them, to _show_ them the true meaning of rapture and agony.

But...there was one more obstacle, besides the pillar which held him in place, for which inhibited and subdued his drive for flesh, and they stood before him at this very moment, just when he ought to have been devouring them in order to break free of his stone shackle.

Awake, alive, partially nourished of sacrificial blood...and now experiencing confusion as a gentle gliding of feminine fingertips trailed the length of his articulately scarred face. Beautiful, graceful, tender_, familiar _fingertips. Fingers he quite vividly recalled imagining being at home curled around the handles of the usual tools of his own craft, before he was stripped of his rank and decorations, and then placed into a death-like sleep.

Oh she had such potential..._has._

Somehow, she had found him, and he was frozen with a peculiar feeling sweeping throughout his fractured soul.

Every other mortal he had encountered was used for his own ends; flesh and blood of unwitting fools forcibly taken and feasted upon. He had grown strong, and closer to escaping his incubator, with every drop of blood and sliver of human meat he had consumed. He had seduced and coerced the weak-willed to assist him with the promise of a reward.

And yet now, confronted with a familiar pair of emphatic brown eyes, and an exquisitely beautiful face framed with dark chestnut curls...his own thoughts of gratification and survival instincts ebb away, left only with a feeling of something foreign, something he ought not to be experiencing.

Kirsty. His _Kirsty_. She was gazing at him, touching his stone-cold face with fervour, weeping with tear-ridden eyes that swept the very length of the Pillar of Souls, and his encased body, with despair and sadness.

_'She wishes to save me, to free me,' _he thought as those dark eyes drank her in from head to foot_. 'Interesting,'_

"I thought you were dead," she whispered, eyes now focused on those intense onyx pools, and taking in the neat array of the much thicker and longer nails that sunk deeply into his pale-blue skull. "But I dreamt of you. Five years I dreamt of you. I felt you, in my dreams...you were _trapped_." Her hand cradled his jaw with such tenderness that it sickened him, then conversely filled him with a strange warmth. Her eyes drank him in again, her head shaking in despair at witnessing this unfair imprisonment.

Oh if only she knew his true intentions, that his soul was incomplete and not whole. She would not sympathise with him, then, would she? She would not be so desperate to free him.

But she remembered his sacrifice...she remembered the _whole_ him, his full and _true_ self who had put his own reputation, his position, his very _life, _on the line in order to protect her. To _save_ her.

He could only just vaguely recall the deed himself, and despite that lapse into mundane, human thinking...he did not regret that moment. In fact, he would do it all over again if he could.

And that was precisely what he had to do now...it was for her own good. She would only be harmed along the way, and that's not what he desired. She was _more_ than that.

"How do I get you out of this thing?" He was brought out of his thoughts with her gentle, merciful voice at his left ear, as she now circled the pillar. She stepped over the unconscious body of Monroe, the foolish boy who'd promised him one more sacrifice and instead brought him someone so much more worthier than being used to feed off of. Someone who'd refused to be exploited in such a manner in which he had used other females for his own gratification, and she was the reason he was lying bleeding on the floor. "Let me _help_ you."

Oh she really was so much more. One day, he would reveal her own worth. He would help her unlock her true potential, to help her to freely act upon her own unbidden desires, to slake that unconscious curiosity. He would make her the ultimate exception amongst a world of flesh and want. He would make her a Queen_, his _Queen...

...But, not _yet_. He had such work to do.

"You _saved _me. Let me save _you_."

He closed his eyes as her forefinger tip trailed his bottom lip gently; his body was embedded in stone, but he could still feel his heart pound within his chest, could feel the unmistakable surge of arousal engorging his manhood, especially when the girl completed her examination of the pillar, and was now facing him again, her hand touching his face, and uttering a rather human - if precious - confession.

"I _love_ you."

He couldn't bear it any longer. Her safety was paramount at this point in his mission; he would not harm a hair on her head, he would protect her with every fibre of his broken being, he would not force her to stand by his side and would instead give her the freedom of choice, something he would not afford any other. It went against his every instinctual thought, but for only she would he indulge.

Quite hopelessly, he was aware, and to his chagrin, he loved her too. _This _part of him loved her, the _other _part of him loved her, and the _whole_ of him was devastatingly in love to the point of extreme torment.

But right now, she was a distraction, a diversion from accomplishing his ambitious goals. She had to leave him be. _For now_.

"Leave this place, Kirsty." he bellowed, his voice strangely soft despite its harshness. But it did little to comfort her.

Her eyes widened, and she slowly shrank back. But her eyes still watched his, soft brown meeting icy black. She took her time to reach the heavily reinforced door. She still gazed at him empathetically, as if trying to silently plead with him, to reach his heart. But her emotive eyes were met with only fierceness, and a strange chaos beneath the surface.

The door suddenly creaked open, and she guessed he mentally unlocked it. He was letting her go, and she decided to take the opportunity, despite the strong urge she felt to try and attempt to tear him from that damned thing. She spun on her heel, and flew for the exit.

"I will return for you, my dear sweet Kirsty," he called out to her as she stepped from the threshold of Monroe's room, and into the din of the pounding rock music of the _Boiler Room_ nightclub. She turned to face him one last time, her eyes glistening with fresh tears...for his predicament, and for how harsh he was behaving towards her. There was something wrong with him, something odd with his eyes..._something_ she could not quite place.

"Rest assured," That _voice _again, those rich and dulcet tones lulling her, seductive and reassuring, brought her from her musings. Something was wrong, _he _was all wrong... "I will seek you when the time is right. But now, go free and do not return again."

...And she was going to get to the bottom of it.

**_The End...?_**

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_Hope you enjoyed this little offering for now. Thanks for reading. Sorry-Not-Sorry for the fluff. :)_


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